It evokes such feeling, such emotion…
Such a rich selection of multi-textured memory!
But perhaps one feeling it elicits trumps them all in sheer energy and volume:

LUST.

Luscious treats abound...

Yes especially here in trendy Williamsburg, Brooklyn where beautiful and intriguing young women pop out of the subway one after the other as if being churned out from some heavenly doll factory in the sky, a man must deal with a relentless surge of hormonal longing on a daily basis.

And incredibly, as I near the end of my 30’s, I can see little discernible ebbing of my testosterone levels. So basically my sex drive (or more aptly, my level of raw DESIRE) is only slightly less than that of a teenage boy. Couple this with the endless barrage of half-undressed dazzling cuties all over the neighborhood and you end up with a state of near constant arousal.

Now, sure, in NYC we all pass attractive females every hour of every day. And admiring them is indeed enjoyable and once they pass life goes on. This is a survival instinct. Accept an unending stream of gorgeous ladies passing by, never to be seen again, or die from frustration. Even Johnny Depp, a man who could conceivably make love with almost any damn woman he chooses, right on the tourist-packed island smack dab in the middle of Times Square, simply by pointing at her, would be unable to have every female he desired. No matter your station or situation, looks or income, you simply can’t have them all, and accepting this premise is part of being a man.

But what about that ONE woman?

Well, not so much a woman… More a PARODY of a woman’s sexuality, that ONE so rife with raw, oozing sex that you’re not sure life can continue as it was before you laid eyes on her if you can’t be with her?

The light-skinned Brazilian, or Spaniard, or whatever she is -though somehow obviously not American as evidenced by a certain languid relaxation with her movements- who apparently only had time to throw what is essentially a pastel-colored tissue over her body and who starts to make you feel like an ooohing and ahhing slack-jawed teen from a bad 80’s movie when she starts STRETCHING and GYRATING in the middle of the coffee shop, her gravity-defying breasts capped by clearly restless nipples, her almost absurdly miniscule shorts completely ridden up the luscious derrière’ revealing just the tantalizing tip of a thong up top and not much else below….?

THE WOMAN whose wild, uncombed plumes of brunette sit atop those blazing baby blues with equal amounts innocence and sinfulness, surrounded by a freckle-flecked visage that makes you think of the one that got away so long ago, makes you want to lift your stupid laptop up over your head right there in broad daylight in the middle of the sleepy, hipster-ridden coffee shop, heft it high over your head, with all it’s stupid blog posts, price sheets, sales data, savings account info and emails about $20 of sushi for $8 and scream “DAMN IT ALL!” at the top of your lungs as you hurl it through the front window with an earth-shaking crash after which you scoop the gorgeous Spaniard up into your arms and escape into the blazing promise of the young day’s sun to dance and drink your cares away… ?

Phew.

I suppose dealing with these blazing outbursts of fiery lust and passion are part of what being a man is about. Maybe they’re even part of what being HUMAN is about…The sometimes painful disconnect between the urges we have to live out scenes from an action movie, to pump automatic weapon fire into a super-villain, to make love to a stunning blonde beneath a cascading waterfall and to drive a Ferrari through a glass storefront window. We want to LIVE at this tremendous, hyper-real level, to experience things we only see in fiction. And part of life is reconciling these urges and visions with the sobering reality of what living really is.

Blame it on summer, I guess. Science has demonstrated the critical importance of testosterone levels in men as they age, how the ebbing of these levels is synonymous with getting old, losing one’s mojo and becoming fat and irrelevant. So I suppose I should be thankful for these powerful if sometimes frustrating feelings. What is life, after all, without passion and yearning?

For me, the best way of dealing is to channel these urges into life itself. A friend of mine -a female Argentinian, no less!- runs a business where she attempts to help her clients feel “horny for life”, and I’d say this may be an apt metaphor for what us men can do to deal with these potent waves of lust.

We need to direct this energy into all we feel and everything we do .
I like to actually use these episodes as inspiration to plan outings and activities that are exciting and different and that hint at the spectacular thrills and chills that life can deliver.

Because it’s not just about women and sex. It’s about a burning hunger to live.